DESCRIPTION: Tanner Research and the Pine lab of Caltech are proposing to develop an enabling technology for the electrophysiological study of multineural systems in vitro: multi-electrode arrays embedded in culture dish substrates with user-friendly interfaces and analysis capabilities. Non-invasive recording simultaneously from many neurons, and selective stimulation, are becoming more necessary for meaningful studies of neural networks of dissociated cells, slices, and explants. In Phase I, the Pine lab will quantitatively characterize various neuron-electrode geometries for recording and for stimulation; the results will be linked to the biophysics of extracellular electrophysiology and used to determine optimal array designs. Tanner Research will develop an affordable, low noise, reliable computerized data acquisition system based on state-of- the-art electronics. Tanner Research will also develop easy-to-use interface and analysis software that displays the results in real-time and records the data for later analysis. By the end of Phase I, Tanner Research and the Pine lab will have produced a functional prototype of the complete system. In Phase II, they plan to further develop and commercialize this system to provide an important tool for neurobiological research. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: NOT AVAILABLE